Sílvia Lopes, professor at NOVA NSPH, participated in the recent “SICO Meeting 10 years – Knowing to inform, informing to prevent”, which aimed to reflect on SICO’s achievements throughout the decade, promote collaboration and rapprochement between the involved entities, explore opportunities for technological and methodological innovation to improve the efficiency and quality of SICO and stimulate debate on future development needs, considering new trends in public health.
Having been invented by DGS, Prof. Sílvia Lopes discussed – in the session on “Mortality surveillance and health research” – the importance for public health of investigating the place of death and recent evidence for Portugal in this matter.
A study published in January 2024, as part of a project coordinated by the University of Coimbra with funding from the European Research Council, showed a high frequency of people in Portugal whose place of death is a hospital or a health institution, as opposed to other places , such as home.
The study, covering 32 countries and the period from 2012 to 2021 can be found at https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(23)00576-X/fulltext